[hc] The Astronomical Basis of the Catur Yuga System

[Guest guest]

Respected Dr. R. N. Iyengar,

Namaskar!

 

1. I had said in my post, " If Lagadha could calculate Uttarayana " and not

" if Lagadha did calculate " as interpreted by you! That he could calculate

Uttarayana is evident from the very first mantra of his Vedanga Jyotisha

which reads " After saluting Prajapati who is the lord of the five-year Yuga

(which consists of the day, the season, the ayana and the month as its

parts) I become purified and then after saluting the god of time and also

the goddess of learning, I describe the knowledge of time as propounded by

the great sage Lagadha " ...Dikshit's translation

 

If Acharya Lagadha had not been able to calculate Uttarayana etc. ayanas, he

would certainly not have invoked " ayana " as an incarnation of divine Time.

 

2. Regarding Varahamihira, he was not an astronomer at all but just an

astrologer, a charlatan at that, since he could make correct predictions

from " spashta-taro savitrah " ( " Surya Sidhanta, the most accurate work!

Sic!) " which is actually the most absurd astronomical work that could ever

have been produced by any swindler!

 

3. I have gone through Varahamihira's Panchasidhantika, Brihat Samhita and

even his Brihat Jatakam etc. and it is evident from those works that he had

absolutely no idea about precession of equinoxes, unlike the real Vedic

astronomers! All he did was to quote earlier authorities that the

Uttarayana was falling at sometime in the past in Ashleshardha. But he had

said further that in his time it was in the beginning of Makara Rashi and

Dakshinayana was in the beginning of Karkata Rashi! He has not referred to

any nakshatra anywhere which were the " houses " of Uttarayana or Dakshinayana

at his time! This is evident from the first three sholkas of third adhyaya

of his BS.

 

4. VM has praised the SS to skies. The same SS has categorically stated

that Uttarayana and Makar Sankranit and Dakshinayana and Karka Sankranti

etc. are one and the same thing and since the SS is supposed to have been

" revealed " at the time of the start of Satya-yuga, obviously, the Uttarayana

remained glued to Makara Rashi from the dawn of creation till its doomsday

according to the SS. But the charlatan Varahamihira was surprised that

Uttarayana was taking place in Makara and Dakshinayana in Karkata Rashi at

his time!

5. The fact of the matter is that the Uttarayana etc. ayanas calculated as

per the fundamental arguments of the SS of Panchasidhantika -- or even the

current SS -- could/can never coincide with the real

Uttarayana/Dakshinayana etc. since there is a difference of about

twenty-four minutes between the exact seasonal year and the measure given by

the SS.

 

6. In his Brihat Samhita, Adhyana 3, shloka 4, Varahamihira has said, as per

Alberuni's India -- vol II, page 117 -- " If the turning to the north (i.e.

Uttarayana)takes place before the sun enters the sign Capricornus, the south

and the west will be ruined. If the turning to the south (i.e.

Dakshinayana) takes place before the sun enters Cancer, the east and the

north will be ruined. If the turning coincides with the sun's entering the

first degrees of these two signs, or takes place after it, happiness will be

common to all four sides and bliss in them will increase " .

 

The problem actually is that Varahamihira was unable to reconcile himself to

the erroneous calculations of the SS vis-à-vis its statements that

Uttarayana and Makar Sankranti were one and the same thing and he was

utterly confused ( " a mad man! " because of those discrepancies. That is why

Alberuni had commented about Varahamihira on the same page of the same work,

" Such sentences, understood as they seem intended to be understood, sound

like the ravings of a madman... "

Prior to that comment about Varahamihira, Alberuni had said about similar

" ravings " of the same charlatan, " Strange still is the following remark of

his (V. 24), 'If an eclipse occurs earlier than has been calculated, there

is little rain and the sword is drawn. If it occurs later than has been

calculated, there will be pestilence, and death, and destruction in the

corn, the fruit, and flowers " . Alberuni, with the disdain that such

statements deserve, says further, and rightly so, " If a man properly knows

how to calculate, it will not happen to him in his calculations that an

eclipse falls too early or too late " . In other words, Varahamihira was a

real bad workman who quarreled with his tools!

 

His ignorance about even ABC of astronomy gets further confirmed by his

self-contradictory statements " Uttarayana is taking place these days in the

first degrees of Makara Rashi... " and then, in the same breath " predict "

that " If the Uttarayana starts before entering Capricornus, south and the

west will be ruined " . Such statements can never be made by anyone even with

a modicum of geographical/astronomical knowledge.

 

Regarding the precession of Equinoxes, the SS contains three " world famous "

shlokas 9 to 12 in third chapter (trimshat-kritva yuge bhanam... " ), and it

is an open secret that they are interpolations of about 8th/9th century,

after Munjala's Laghumanasa! If we calculate precession as per those

sholkas, these days we are having a " precession " of about 24 degrees but

with the rider that they have to be subtracted from the so called nirayana

longitudes of the SS to make them so called sayana. Obviously, if our

sidhantic " astronomers " had known precession and the methodology of

calculating the same even in a rudimentary manner, they would not have made

a laughing stock of themselves by inserting such " ravings " about precession

in the SS!

 

Yes, in the pre-Surya Sidhanta time, the real Uttarayana etc. solstices and

equinoxes, apart from Madhu, Madhava etc. Vedic months, were given due

respect and all the festivals and fairs calculated accordingly, as advocated

by the Vedanga Jyotisha or the Pitamaha Sidhanta etc. but by the time the

calculations of the SS took over completely, we lost the original Uttarayana

etc. and stuck to the ones calculated by the SS. Some stalwarts like

Manjula, through his Laghumananaa, and Utpala through his commentaries, did

try to put the matter back on the right track but they did not succeed since

they were drowned under the din and cacophony of phalit jyotishis, for whom

the calculations of the SS were supreme!

 

Thus Varahamihira was and is an Albatross around the neck of Hindu society

and no wonder nowadays " Vedic jyotishis " like Lahiriwalas and Ramanawala

etc. etc. vie with one another to be likened to Varahamihira and they swell

with pride if such " honorifics " are bestowed on them. Needless to say that

it is because of such Varahamihiras that these days we are celebrating

Uttarayana on January 14 instead of December 21/22 since they are blind

followers of " spashtatro-savitrah " even today as is evident from the fact

that the difference between the mean longitudes of the Surya Sidhanta sun

and those of the Rashtirya Panchanga sun are less than half a degree even

after sixteen centuries of Varahamihira having departed to Yamaloka!

 

It is only real scholars like you who can do something about it.

With regards,

A K Kaul

 

hinducivilization , " aareni " <aareni

wrote:

 

> If Lagadha of the Vedanga Jyotisha could clculate

> Uttarayana etc. in 14th century BCE correctly, what prevented

> Aryabhata from doing so after about 18 centuries of that remote

> period?

 

Sri Kaul,

When one judges and criticizes ancient scientists from modern

standards and/or prejudices it is better to be factual.

Lagadha did not " calculate " as you write. He observed, the

UttarayaNa

day with " Dhanishtha " as Vedic ritualists would have done.

VM in his Brihatsamhita mentions the solstice in the first quarter

of

Uttarashadha during his time. This to my simple 'standard' appears

quite reasonable. He also mentions (as I recollect) that during a

previous epoch this is said to have occurred in Dhanishtha,

[attributed by the commentator of Brihatsamhita namely, Utpala to

Paraashara]. VM also mentions how to make an observation.

Observations were done in India in later period also as seen in the

book Adbuhta sagara of BAllala Sena. There are inscriptions (see

Indian Antiquary) that record charity given away on uttarayana

punyakaala, the date matching with 21-23 December and not 14th

January. I have made several long posts on this previously in IC and

HC. Hence I rest.

 

RN Iyengar

 

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